


hold me in your arms, tell me you mean it

by maggierachael



Series: love is a two way street, my dear [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Hitman AU, also featuring Oberyn Martell is a Good Parent, also known as quit treating ellaria like a throwaway character, also known as that fool is head over heels for ellaria but she doesn't know how to feel, and Quality Ellaria Sand Snark, is this entire fic an excuse for the two of them to cuddle? yes., she's smart and kind and badass and takes none of oberyn's shit, welcome back to Maggie Is Emo About Oberyn Martell, with guest appearances from the three youngest martell princesses, would i do it again? probably.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:07:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28388259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggierachael/pseuds/maggierachael
Summary: Why Ellaria had agreed to come was beyond her. She’d been on her feet for ten hours. She was in pain. She had reports she ought to be drafting. At the very least, she should be resting.But for every day she counted Oberyn Martell as an acquaintance, it seemed as though a little bit more of her sanity fell away.Or: Ellaria and Oberyn both deserve to rest.
Relationships: Oberyn Martell/Ellaria Sand
Series: love is a two way street, my dear [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2079096
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	hold me in your arms, tell me you mean it

**Author's Note:**

> "They say that your heart  
> Is the size of your fist  
> I can tell you first hand  
> I know how that glove fits...  
> And in between is all of love  
> And loss, attraction  
> You live your life between contractions  
> And you and I, we do just that."
> 
> -Dessa, "Half of You"

The doors to the apartment complex stared back at Ellaria like the gaping maw of a giant. 

Why she’d agreed to come here was beyond her. She’d been on her feet for ten hours. She was in pain. She had reports she ought to be drafting. At the very least, she should be resting. 

But for every day she counted Oberyn Martell as an acquaintance, it seemed as though a little bit more of her sanity fell away.

It was a nice building, all things considered. More lowkey than she’d expected for a prince. No gold or gilt, no gated entryway, no guards on horseback waiting to grill any person that dared come within fifty feet. If she hadn’t had the address in her phone, she might’ve dismissed it entirely - just a standard New York highrise, as dissimilar to a castle from a fairy tale as one could imagine. 

And this prince certainly wasn’t one of the ones in Elia’s storybooks. 

Where an armed guard should stand was merely a doorman, dressed in the slightly outmoded fashion of every hotel attendant and poor-man-working-for-the-rich the world over. Long jacket, flat-brimmed cap, gentle smile. She’d seen a hundred of them before, each one only distinguished by the colors of the company to which he pledged allegiance. 

This one bore no signs of Dornish heritage, no bright hues of happiness or grandeur, no suns or gilded edges or the brightness that betrayed a royal family from a land of sunshine. He was dressed rather darkly, ironically, his jacket tinged with dark greens and the lines on his ageing face betraying a life lived entirely in front of this door. His presence gave no indication of just who resided inside - and perhaps that was the idea. 

“Can I help you, miss?” 

His words startled her, dragging the zeppelin of her brain back to Earth by its grounding cords. He looked unbothered, she noted as she glanced up. He looked rather kind, in fact, considering a strange woman in a day dress was standing in front of his post at almost nine in the evening. 

She couldn’t tell him she was here to see Oberyn. She could barely admit it to herself. Give any working class New Yorker an excuse for gossip, and they’ll take it. Lord knows the string of women that had turned up at this very door asking to see him, stranger or not. 

She could see the Post headline now: “Local Surgeon Caught Cavorting with Royal Playboy”. 

And that was if they even bothered calling her anything. 

No, she couldn’t tell the truth. When could she ever, in this web she’d caught herself in? When did the truth become the glue that held the fibers together, rather than the shears that snipped them to pieces? 

“I’ve got a consult on the thirty-fifth floor,” she decided, the words tumbling out in a tired, barely thought out rush. “House call.” 

She struggled to produce her hospital badge from her purse, praying the doorman would be enough of a cynical New Yorker not to look too closely at the credentials printed on it. It was the closest thing she had to a “get out of jail free” card, and she already had half a foot in the cell block as it was. 

Not entirely a lie, she thought. Just not the whole truth. 

New York practically traded in half-truths, and as the doorman glanced at the thick block letters reading out “Highgarden Hospital”, Ellaria prayed she wouldn’t be caught with false currency. 

“Elevator’s’ll be on your left. You’ll have to call up before you can get in.”

He looked up at her, his gaze blank enough to suggest he had no interest in a woman who looked like she’d had one hell of a day. 

The city had decided on indifference, and would allow her to live in anonymity for a while longer. 

She gave the man a kind smile - as much as she could muster after a day full of triage - and slipped the card back in her bag, hoping to expedite her entrance before someone else noticed her lingering. He returned the smile, waving her towards those huge, gaping doors.

They looked even more looming the closer she got. They were huge, easily twice Ellaria’s height as she stepped towards them slowly, heel to toe, trying to use some kind of sensation to ground her. Trying to find some explanation in her actions for why she was doing this in the first place. Trying to logic just what in Oberyn Martell’s text message had been worth coming here for. 

Trying to determine why she’d even kept his number in the first place.

The closer she got, the more she saw signs of a prince of Dorne in this gate to another world. Ornate metalwork separated her from the land of the rich and famous, bearing images of warmer, happier days. Birds flying under the sun. Flowers growing and sweeping over landscapes unknown. Moons and stars curling into a vast, unimaginable space, spilling over onto polished gold door handles easily the size of Ellaria’s head. 

The metal was cold under her hands, icy despite the burgeoning warmth of a spring evening - an ominous warning to the adventurer about to enter the dragon’s den. 

Usually it was the princes who came to rescue the peasant girls. Not the other way around. 

She pulled gingerly on the handle, and the maw of the giant swallowed her whole. 

____________

She had not expected the prince in the tower to be covered in glitter. 

Frankly, she hadn’t known what to parse at all from a vague text at the very end of her shift. “ _ I’d like to see you - are you free?” _ doesn’t exactly engender romance, nor does it engender disgust. She wasn’t entirely sure how Oberyn Martell made her feel, if she was perfectly honest with herself. He was a host of men wrapped into one. A prince, a mercenary, a philanderer. A person who wore as many faces as she saw patients, a man who constructed a persona around him to keep anyone from fully breaking in. 

She hadn’t anticipated sweatpants and a face covered in children’s makeup to be part of that.

“My dove. You’re early.” 

He stood in front of her with a grin like liquid sunshine, the cheap sheen of dollar store lip gloss glinting off the lights in his parlor. It was a massive entry hall, overhead lighting casting a golden glow down the hall to the living area that Ellaria could just see into. He looked like something out of some strange indie film, with his hair askew and the collar of his henley just missing the knife wound she’d stitched up barely two weeks prior. It was a great deal to process.

And she was still half in the elevator, partly amused that (of course) it let out directly into the flat. 

“The L was actually on time for once.” 

She smoothed down the front of her dress, some girlish part of her paranoid about her looks as she stepped into the height of New York grandeur. It was all contemporary high fashion, vaulted ceilings and neutral colors and what she assumed was art worth more than her yearly salary on the walls. It was, if not a prince’s palace, a haven fit for a man of luxury. A hideaway for a man who needed no one to know his name. 

But she also noticed toys scattered in corners; a pile of Barbies here, a set of plastic cars there. Detractions from the glamour. Indications that this was not merely a fortress, but someone meaningful’s home. 

“You’ve got a little…”

Her sentence trailed off in a hush, her mind much too bewildered to do much except gesture at his face. If she’d had the nerve to tell him, she’d have said he looked like one of Elia’s half-finished art projects. All he was missing was a few layers of puff paint. And perhaps a bit more glitter. 

If he was embarrassed that he looked like a much loved and much abused Ken doll, she wouldn’t know. 

“Biweekly tea party,” he drawled, as if that explained everything. “Obella and Loreza are very strict about their dress code.”

He chuckled, and Ellaria blamed the kickflip in her heart on sheer exhaustion from her shift. 

And certainly not on the way he reached out to bring her extended hand to his lips. 

“We’d be honored to have you join us.” 

His grin turned childish, the corners of his mouth upturned in the boyish way Ellaria knew well from storybooks. Invitation and innuendo wrapped into one, secured together with a bow made of charm and wits and a genetically inherited suntan. It was a grin that knew how to get what it wanted, knew how to disarm anyone within shooting distance before they even had a chance to think. 

Ellaria included. 

And think she did not. Before she could get a word out about how she ought not to spend a length of time there, she was interrupted by a sharp noise, coming from somewhere within the bowels of the cavernous apartment. It was a noise she recognized, a tire shriek squeal that indicated the entrance of a number of very excited, if not downright giddy, children. 

It grew louder and louder, until three tiny bodies came barrelling around a corner, pink and purple and green nightgowns swishing in a frenzy of energy as they approached the foyer. They were comets hurtling with reckless abandon, their speed unmatched until they crashed unceremoniously into the legs of the man waiting eagerly for their arrival. 

The expression on Oberyn’s face shifted, morphing from self-satisfied fairy tale prince to proud, doting father as though on cue. They both seemed to coexist as one, these versions of him intertwined together as he lifted two of the little princesses into his arms with ease. They made him seem normal, something attainable rather than the tabloid figure people made him seem. 

She wondered how easily both of those men covered up the ruthless assassin underneath. 

“Impeccable timing, as always.” 

He spoke with the pride of every new parent she’d ever met, the adoration in his voice seemingly as fresh as it had been the day all three girls were born. She knew her own face had mirrored his more than once, but it was not an expression she’d ever expected to see from him.

People contained multitudes, and Oberyn Martell’s were seemingly endless.

She’d had yet to meet any of his daughters in person - aside from the rather unfortunate encounter with the eldest - and three at once would’ve been daunting had she not made her life as a surgeon. They piled onto Oberyn like a jungle gym, the one still on the ground clinging to his clothes and giggling like mad. (Perhaps too shy to greet Ellaria?) They were quite small, a shock considering his eldest was out of college - the youngest was no older than her own, a tiny wisp of a thing who looked more determined than most attending physicians she’d ever met. 

She could see Oberyn in all of them, in the curl of their hair and the smiles that said they could get away with anything. They had their father’s eyes - kind, and knowing, but mischievous all the same. They were the nymphs in the forest, the brave little princesses who played pretend and had the world to adventure in as they pleased. 

They reminded her of her Elia. 

“My three youngest.” 

Oberyn said it with pride, his grin now bright enough to rival the sun along the Equator. He looked younger than he ever had, the years she’d watched crease his face fading the way as though he’d turned back the clock. He was a better man for his girls, she could tell - as much as she was a better woman for hers.

“These two,” he said, shaking his arms to produce laughter from the smallest ones, “are Dorea and Loreza. And this is Obella.”

All three grinned as widely as their father, Dornish blood evident as they preened in their sleep clothes. Obella was taller than the others, clearly the eldest and stick-skinny, while Dorea and Loreza still had the chubby, angelic faces of preschool kids. They all looked pleased as punch to be up past their bedtime - no doubt in order to charm Ellaria into staying a while longer. 

“Hello, Doctor Sand!”

They gazed up at her with those eyes like shining marbles, and the cheery, robotic sound of little girls following orders made Ellaria smile. Doubtless they’d never called anyone by such a formal title in their lives.

Her heart could’ve won gold for all the gymnastics it was doing.

“Call me Ellaria,” she replied, “Please.”

She held out a hand, the same she’d have offered to a doctor or a member of the hospital board, and all three girls clambered for it immediately, nearly knocking her off-balance. Oberyn’s laughter rang off the walls of the foyer as he jostled to keep his girls upright, hardly discouraging the joy on their faces at being treated as adults.They were heirs to a throne, after all, and Ellaria saw no reason why they shouldn’t command her respect. 

Some deep part of her feared she might cause an international incident if they didn’t. 

Obella nodded solemnly at her greeting, her free hand hand still clinging to the fabric of her father’s pant leg for security. 

“You’re very pretty, Miss Ellaria.” 

She spoke measuredly, a voice that knew it could get what it wanted but remained shy nonetheless. She looked the most like her father, all searching eyes and pleasant face as she gazed at the intruder in her home, and Ellaria could tell she took after him too. 

She nodded, flattered despite herself. She was far from beautiful on a good day, she knew, and the kindness of the city had not afforded itself to her that day. Her hair was askew, she had barely slept, and she had a sneaking suspicion her eyeliner had started to smear. She was no knight, come to rescue the prince and his family, and no princess, no Cinderella after the blessing of a kind stranger. She was a passerby, a stranger in a strange land.

And yet, Oberyn allowed her in. Into his home, into his life. Into the lives of his daughters. Daughters who saw something in her, no matter how small. 

Children saw the world through rose-colored glasses, and Ellaria welcomed it. After all, they were the only ones to which red flags didn’t apply.

“Thank you, Obella.”

The girl nodded in return before shrinking back to her father. Pretty though she might be, Ellaria was still a stranger. Someone to be sussed out. An intruder, for all the child knew of her. 

Dorea, meanwhile, had no such qualms. 

“Are you Daddy’s girlfriend?” she asked, squirming in her father’s arms in childish defiance of being restrained. Ellaria’s heart lurched unceremoniously in her chest. 

So much for innocence. 

She didn’t have an answer properly prepared for her. She could hardly explain to her own daughter what Oberyn was to her, and the expectant eyes of three Dornish princesses turned her blood to molasses. “Friend with benefits” was not a term she had any desire to teach to future rulers of a nation. 

“Manners, sunshine.”

Oberyn smirked, the half-amused face of a parent whose child has said something they shouldn’t even understand how to say. No doubt women filtered in and out of this home like flies, and no doubt they’d greeted all of them in much the same way they’d greeted her, Ellaria thought. What was one little slip up in the grand scheme of things?

“Whatever she is,” he said to her gently, “She’s come here to visit, so I suppose we’ll just have to adjourn our council meeting for today. I’m sure Master Paddington took adequate notes, did he not?” 

“He did!” Loreza chirped from his other side. Ellaria chuckled - from her place in the foyer, she could just see the stuffed bear perched atop an expensive leather couch, legal pad and fluffy children’s pen tucked neatly under his feet. 

Oberyn nodded firmly - this was clearly a matter of great importance.

“Then we will see to it,” he replied, “That the residents of the top shelf receive their due audience for complaint first thing tomorrow.”

He set Dorea and Loreza back down, their faces quickly morphing into the universal toddler symbol for ‘five more minutes’. They’d honed the skill well, with puppy dog eyes no doubt genetically inherited from the man standing over them. (How else could Ellaria explain all the times she’d sewn him up on her couch?) It was well past nine, and even she was tempted to argue for just a bit longer with them. But perhaps that was longing for her own child speaking. 

“Off to bed now.” Oberyn gestured down the hall, towards whatever cavern of luxury lay beyond. His voice was firm, but his face was kind; the last thing he wanted was to reprimand them. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

“Can I sleep with Dorea tonight?”

It was the littlest one’s turn to perk up, little Loreza with her perfect curls and eyes that, try as she might, betrayed how tired she truly was. Michaelangelo could’ve made an angel out of her as she tugged on her father’s hand, voice small in the expanse of the foyer. Even Oberyn, with all his princely stature, couldn’t resist.

“Very well,” he said. “But you must sleep. No meetings without the advisor, yes?”

All three girls nodded. 

“Good. Now, away to bed.”

With that, they acquiesced without question, skittering off with as much fervor as they’d had when they entered. They were gone almost as soon as they’d entered, and Ellaria wondered if, perhaps, Oberyn did have something of fairy tale magic in him. She certainly couldn’t get her own daughter to sleep that easily. 

Their giggles trailed them as they left, pinging off the walls and doors and piles of stuffed animals lying in corners - and as they took off in the direction of their bedroom, Ellaria took note that Oberyn hadn’t denied his daughters’ accusation.

And that he’d cradled them with the same hands she’d seen snap a man’s neck. 

“Make yourself at home.” 

Oberyn’s gaze returned to her, softened by mere moments together with his girls. Looking at him, she would never have suspected him to father a brood like that. Many might have considered seven daughters a setback, a failure of genetic endowment. A weight to carry until they grew old enough to be princesses on their own. To society, daughters were burdens, set on a man’s back to toil him into nothingness, or to be cast off when one learns to balance their time and choose their battles. 

But not to him. 

Those girls - all seven - were joy incarnate to him. The best thing in his world. 

“I’ll be right back.”

He smiled in a way that would’ve sent lesser women reeling, and Ellaria watched as he padded off down the hall, attention geared towards the certainly-not-asleep giggles of three young princesses she could hear within. She noticed he was limping slightly, but he’d vanished before she could ascertain why. She was left with only herself, swallowed up by the prospect of everything that lay in front of her - a family, a home, a night she had no way of telling the future of. 

Being left alone in an apartment - luxurious or not - was a sign of only two things: either she was deeply trusted, or being told to go away. 

And she didn’t have enough evidence to be able to tell which. 

Without much else to do, she drifted down the hall, an impossibly small woman in an impossibly large home. She was child-size, compared to what Dornish wealth could buy, an insignificant wisp floating on an impulse of feelings. A mistake, an error in judgement. An anomaly in an otherwise perfect existence. She felt like an intruder, despite the encouragement to get comfortable. 

The hall stretched off in a number of directions, tunnels into the belly of the beast that she didn’t dare explore. She could see bedrooms, washrooms, even a gameroom the size of her spacious office at work. More than one door was locked, its contents squirreled away with locks that seemed a bit sturdy even for child-proofing. She didn’t dare open them - mostly because she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was behind them. 

The hall terminated, unsurprisingly, in the living room, a large and well-furnished space  where Paddington remained, a sentinel standing guard on the edge of the couch. His fur was worn around the edges, gray where it should’ve been brown, and more than one stain littered the brim of his signature red hat. His pen and paper remained unmoved, and Ellaria could just about see scribbles in what looked like purple gel pen running across the page. 

She suspected the room could’ve fit her apartment and then some, the space more than large enough to accommodate a man and his seven daughters. Plate glass windows furnished one entire wall, a voyeur’s view into the lives of those walking Central Park West hundreds of feet below. It was a life in the clouds, tidy and clean despite the signs of children and teenagers tucked away in corners. School binders sat on a sprawling loveseat, but the floor and bookshelves were noticeably free of dust. A toy firetruck sat abandoned in front of a television set big enough to swallow Ellaria whole, but the rug it sat upon was entirely spotless - the results of a life clearly kept up by someone else. 

A part of Ellaria wondered if having things like this - a proper home, some wealth, someone to clean up after her - made life less stressful. Oberyn seemed to be coping quite well, her prince in the golden tower with everything he could ever ask for. 

(If only she knew.) 

She drifted gently into the kitchen, mooring at an island big enough to play soccer on. Spotless enough that she could see her tired reflection in it, she chose to lean on it, settling in just enough to take in the unreasonably expensive appliances as Oberyn emerged from the opposite hallway.

“Council meeting ran long today, did it?”

Her eyebrow drifted up at his approaching form, now deflated like a cheap, much abused party balloon. His shoulders slumped, and he lacked the princely air that he always seemed to carry with him, as essential to his day as house keys or the pistol he kept in his car. He was no longer the man from the fairy tales, or even the tabloids. Just a worn-out father, with more bubbling under the surface than either of them could ever know. 

“I’m afraid so.”

Even his voice sounded tired, rougher and deeper as his gaze met Ellaria’s. His face was still covered in plastic rhinestones, the light from the overheads making him glow. 

“Those two get better and better at staying up past their bedtime every day.” 

He attempted a smile, and even as it strained before her eyes, heavy after the weight of a long day, the look of it still made something in Ellaria’s chest jump. 

“Though I must say, land disputes posed by teddy bears are far more interesting than Dornish politics any day of the week.”

“I don’t doubt that.” 

Ellaria attempted a smile of her own, though she was certain it came out just as lackluster as his. Working the muscles in her face felt like a chore, and she was certain he felt nothing of the static charge she always felt as a result. But manners are manners, and he seemed quietly amused nonetheless.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “Thirsty?” 

He waved a grand hand around the room, at what was clearly a kitchen serviced for at least twenty houseguests at any given time. Ellaria was certain her entire master bed could be stuffed in the fridge - Oberyn was clearly nothing if not adept at entertaining guests. 

She waved him off silently. She didn’t know if it was bad manners to eat in front of someone you’d already slept with if you hadn’t been on a proper date, but the idea of it wasn’t appealing either way. Besides, she’d gleaned from enough fairy stories that accepting food from someone extraordinary was only cause for trouble.

“No thanks,” she muttered. “I’m fine. Just curious why I’m here.”

Oberyn frowned. 

“I told you, my dove,” he replied, “I just wanted to see you. It’s been too long.” 

“It’s been a week and a half. I’ve been busy.”

Busy was understating it. She’d worked ten hours three days in a row, and if she were forced to endure another night shift, she just might crack. Spring had arrived, and with the warm inevitably comes the stupid; she would be shocked if she didn’t spend another three nights in triage. But, Oberyn, for all his carelessness and lack of trust in hospitals, didn’t need to know that. 

“No doubt.” He drummed his fingers on the countertop, gazing at her. He didn’t sound sarcastic. “Mustn’t be much longer before they name a hospital wing after you.”

Ellaria scoffed. 

“Hardly.” She’d be lucky if the board members remembered her first name, let alone who she was. “If I weren’t so good with the patients, they’d have me out on my backside in a second.”

The frown remained stuck to Oberyn’s face. Ellaria couldn’t help but notice the way it creased his brow together, and how annoyingly good he looked even with his face screwed up and covered in shiny purple glitter. 

“I have difficulty believing that.”

He raised an eyebrow - whether it was meant to be suggestive, she couldn’t tell - and she laughed. 

“You’ve never met my bosses.” She shifted her weight off the counter, loath to go into more detail. “Just because I sewed you up on my couch doesn’t mean I’m a genius.” 

“No,” Oberyn replied calmly. “It’s everything else that makes you one.” 

The frown dissipated, if only slightly, and the way his eyes glinted in the harsh LED light made her breath catch in her chest. 

“Complimenting me isn’t going to get me into your bed any faster, Casanova.”

“Then it’s a relief I don’t have any intention of luring you there.”

She hardly believed him, but she let him get away with it anyway. 

“Come. Sit.”

He’d caught his second wind, clearly, bringing himself as close as he dared without her consent to guide her away from the marble and steel back to the living room. She didn’t have much of a choice, whisked away by the same energy that had coaxed her onto the back of a bike and into his life with all the grace of a bull in a china shop. 

She was keenly aware of the hand ghosting over the small of her back, of the precious few inches between it and her dress as they crossed back into the living room, the lights of Manhattan illuminating the space. He treated her as though she were fragile glass - look, but don’t touch, and certainly don’t assume. 

With no more than a word, he gracefully set her bag aside and cleared the room of what little evidence of mess existed in it. Paddington was relieved of duty, moved to the inside of a toy chest sleekly disguised as a side table, and the balled-up blanket someone had clearty been using for a nap covered him up, an eerie, orange flannel burial shroud. The pen and paper shifted to the coffee table, and he sat, his arms open wide like some kind of world leader opening his arms to the public. Or a prince greeting his subjects.

“You look tired, my dove.” He smiled up at her - still tired, but willing to make an effort just for her - and gestured for her to sit. “Rest with me.”

_ You look tired.  _

Clearly she hadn’t put enough concealer on on the way over. 

But she acquiesced all the same; she’d stepped into the mouse trap, might as well let herself get completely caught. At least extricating herself might be less painful than sitting at opposite ends of the couch and pretending to be pleasant to disguise the real reason she was there. 

The couch was stupidly comfortable, and no doubt the price of a month’s worth of double shifts. Ellaria could feel the fabric sink as she awkwardly settled herself into it, as close to Oberyn as she dared without actually touching him. It was some bad first date she was playing out, sure of where she’d drawn her line in the sand but too naive to see where Oberyn had drawn his.

“May I?”

His arms floated in mid-air, the most ironically awkward she’d ever seen him look. He could shoot a man dead between the eyes without a second thought, but touching her without verbal permission was off-limits. Maybe all that royal charm school nonsense was good for something. 

“Sure.”

And  _ snap! _ went the mousetrap. 

He adjusted himself gracefully, one arm coming to rest around her shoulders, and she was suddenly an awkward teenager again, all lanky, straightened hair and perfect manners and too much dignity to give herself away. She was the cowardly fifteen-year-old, praying a boy’s parents would come early to avoid getting herself in too deep. It was a bad first date, a paranoia that settled into her bones with an unnerving certainty. 

She’d plunged headfirst into the water with Oberyn, but her soul searched for a life raft all the same. 

Every tired muscle in her body screamed to lay her head on his shoulder, but she resisted, if only to cling to the small shred of pride she’d entered his home with. That scared teenanger told her no, that something about doing it would result in an immediate and terrible fuck-up. A disaster of legendary proportions. Her dignity had been eviscerated long ago, long before Oberyn was even a blink in New York’s eye, but if she was one thing, she was stubborn. 

But then again, so was Oberyn. 

“Are all the girls home then?” 

It was a fair enough question, and perhaps the only thing Ellaria could think to sputter while her emotions caught up with her brain. She didn’t exactly have a desire to meet the other four, not when she and her guilty conscience were wrapped up like this, but conversation seemed a safer option than silence. Silence might lead her to things she’d regret. 

“Only the youngest,” Oberyn replied. “Sarella is with a friend, and the Sand Snakes are off somewhere in Brooklyn raising hell.”

“Sand Snakes?” 

Ellaria raised an eyebrow, and he sighed.

“My eldest three have formed a band, heaven help me. A  _ punk _ band.”

Ellaria nearly laughed at the concept. With the way Obara’s glare could cut glass, she couldn’t say she was surprised. At the very least, wearing Docs and singing in basements was a better outlet for their anger than being a mercenary. 

“I’d be a punk if I had six sisters and a prince for a dad, too.” She smiled at the look on his face, the panicked, “lord have mercy” resignation of fathers with rebellious children. “Good for them. It’s constructive.”

“So long as they’re out of trouble.”

_ He’s one to talk.  _

“How is Elia?” His hand gently drew circles along the cap of her shoulder, mirroring the way his eyes traced her face. “Doing well, I presume?”

Ellaria shrugged, tucking her legs under her and settling herself back into his embrace. He felt solid. Secure. 

“She’s fine,” she said. “Asks about you constantly. Wonders when we’re going to get to go to Dorne.” 

And by ‘wondered’, she meant, ‘asked upwards of five times a day and covered their fridge in drawings of “Mommy and Elia and Prince Oberyn” in wild, fantastic landscapes’. Not that Ellaria minded, of course, but she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about giving Oberyn a good wallopping for putting the idea in her head. 

She wanted to wallop him now, just for the grin that spread across his face, like butter melting in the pan. It was no tired, well-meaning grin - not the grin of someone humoring a tired woman talking nonsense about her child. It was Oberyn all over: pure, self-satisfied, and only a few degrees away from completely shit-eating. 

“Just say the word and I’ll have you on a flight.”

His response was immediate, no hesitation or sarcasm as far as the eye could see. The grin remained, and the glint in his eyes was nothing short of blinding sunshine as Ellaria’s heart lurched for a second time that night. 

“You know I can’t do that,” she said. Oberyn shrugged. 

“And why is that, my dove?”

_ Because I haven’t so much as been on a mini-vacation since she was born, and I’m not about to up and take off with a man who keeps AR rifles in the trunk of his car.  _

“I am not getting on a flight to nowhere with my child and my...acquaintance with benefits.” She crossed her arms, hugging herself around the middle as she looked at him sternly. “She doesn’t need to be let down by a man any more than she already has.” 

“Who says I would ever let the two of you down?” he asked. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

The grin dimmed, the look in his eyes lessened to the harsh glare of an LED light rather than the sun. It was a sad smile now - whether that was sadness thinking about Elia’s lack of a real father figure, or simply because Ellaria didn’t fully trust him, she couldn’t tell. It tinged the edges of the joy that lived inside him, almost never dampened but almost surely put on as an act. No man was that kind, that welcoming, that completely and unutterably honest. No man did what Oberyn Martell did for a living and came out the other side that whole. 

_ If people were that happy all the time, they’d wouldn’t be human beings. They’d be game show hosts.  _

Silently, he brushed a hair away from her face, and Ellaria could swear he could hear the blood rushing in her ears. (And possibly to her face.) She wanted to believe him. She really did. She wanted to indulge in the act, suspend her disbelief. She just didn’t think she could sustain it. 

“Thanks, but I think my schedule’s a little busy right now.” 

She dropped eye contact, and Oberyn smiled softly at her, letting the argument down to rest. 

“Bring her here then.” 

He said it as though he were suggesting they get takeout, or take a walk, or watch that ridiculous movie she’d brought up a few weeks ago. And really, it wasn’t any more serious than any of that. At most, he was offering to babysit, take some stress off of Elia’s head for a little while. He had a decent track record - better than most, despite their raucous first encounter ripping open two of his stitches - and with seven girls, she was sure he’d have...

No. She did not mix business with pleasure - as much as she hesitated to admit what this was - and though she knew him, the idea of crossing  _ that  _ barrier was too much for her tired brain. Elia didn’t need another man in her life. Didn’t need someone else to latch onto before they inevitably faded away. 

This wasn’t that kind of a relationship. This was just...complicated. 

“You said she asks after me.” Clearly, he’d picked up on her wordless short-circuiting and was picking up loose ends. “I don’t doubt you could use a babysitter.”

“I have one of those,” she spluttered quickly. She was not about to lose a battle of wits to a man who looked like a My Little Pony reject. “Her name is Olenna and she’s more than capable of taking care of—“ 

“The littlest ones would adore her, I know it.”

He had that proud father look on his face - the one that said he knew he was right and there was absolutely nothing Ellaria could do about it. It made her squirm in her seat. 

“I’m sure even Tyene would enjoy her company.” 

It was a tempting offer. With Ellaria’s job and the hours she worked, Elia had few friends her own age - and no doubt the prospect of playing with real-life princesses would excite her to no end. Clearly, Oberyn knew how to care for children, and if she were careful, a few hours a week couldn’t hurt anyone - right?

But she’d been hurt before, and she didn’t want to risk the same mistake again. 

“Oberyn, I can’t ask you to watch my daughter.” She sighed, tensing up as she felt his hand squeeze her shoulder comfortingly. Begrudgingly, she looked back up at him, guided mostly by the need to prove him wrong. “You’re a prince, and she’s already a handful and a half, that’d be too much for—“

“My dove, I have raised seven girls entirely on my own.” He brought her just the smallest bit closer to him, just enough that their legs brushed and she could see the green of a bruise on his nose that had nearly faded away. “I would happily add one more to the mix.” 

He leaned in enough to press a kiss to her temple, and Ellaria shuddered as she felt a trail of silly plastic rhinestones brush against her cheek. 

“I would do anything for the two of you,” he whispered into her hair. “I have no doubt in my mind about it.”

She didn’t doubt his words. Nor his conviction. But his definition of ‘anything’ might not be one she agreed with. 

“You don’t have to do that.”

Her voice felt small, a fraction of the Ellaria she thought she was. Her words were meek, all the venom drawn out of them by the look in his eyes. She was nothing of the woman she thought herself to be, tough and brave and certainly no damsel in need of saving. She was that meek little girl, a high schooler afraid of her own shadow as Oberyn looked at her like his entire universe was there, on his couch, directly in front of him. 

“I want to.” His voice was dead serious. “More than anything.”

She’d known it from the moment she’d met him, and she should’ve known it now, with the expression on his face: 

The Martells did not come to play. 

Ellaria didn’t dare move as he leaned in closer, closing the gap between them to press a silent kiss to her forehead. His lips were soft on her skin, and she could feel the sticky remnants of Obella’s lipgloss clinging to her forehead when she pulled away to look at him. It marked her like a brand, proof that she’d gone in over her head and let a man into her heart. 

“Let me take care of you, Ellaria. Please.”

His words were nothing more than a whisper, barely audible over the sound of Ellaria’s own breathing. They sank into her skin, bleeding into her brain until they played on loop - the world’s most intimidating broken record. 

He was reckless. He was dangerous. He was, if she took her mother’s words into account, ten steps out of her station and just a bit to the left. Nothing about this followed the rules. He was a prince, for fuck’s sake - he shouldn’t even give her a second thought, let alone his heart on a silver platter. This was not how things should have been done. 

But they were. She’d stumbled into that bar, struck up a conversation with the wrong man at the wrong time. She’d chosen not to back out, and Oberyn had decided that she - she, nameless servant to the masses, overworked mother and constant burden on herself - mattered. She was the one to go to, to trust and endear and lavish and unworthy and often obscene amount of attention on. 

And it wasn’t suffocating, or controlling, or tossing up so many red flags even the NFL would call bullshit. She wasn’t an object to Oberyn, a chess pawn in some larger game that he could sacrifice the moment he needed to. He was reckless, but never with her. He was a man who knew what he had, and what he’d lost. A man who was not about to mix those two together, not again. 

Never questioned. Never judged. Not once. Not even as a joke. 

She saw in his eyes the same look he’d given to his children, the way Oberyn the Prince, Oberyn the Mercenary, melted under her touch the same way snow melted on a sudden spring morning. He gazed at her as nothing other than Oberyn the Man, the lost and tired and stunningly heartbroken, looking at her like she was joy incarnate.

“Fine. But we do it on my terms.”

The words took all the air from her lungs, deflating her into this ridiculous, reckless man’s arms and a place that felt more like belonging than she’d known in a long time. It took everything from her, all the energy she’d built up to hold out on him, keep him at arm’s length just in case he turned out to be everything the stories had warned her about. In an instant, it was gone, replaced with a feeling she knew how to identify, but refused to - perhaps on grounds of sheer stubbornness alone.

He laughed, a gentle, kind sound, and she knew there was no coming back from it. There was no turning back now, no pumping the brakes no matter how hard she tried. She’d burnt the bridge back to normal, sending it up in flames that glowed in his brown eyes and the way her muscles couldn’t resist grinning too. It seared her skin, bright and blinding and unimaginably huge. 

But every adventurer must take risks, and the warmth of the fire felt pretty cozy to her. 

**Author's Note:**

> Good evening, I am back on my hitman AU House Martell bullshit and I have zero shame.


End file.
